Saks Global, the parent company of luxury retailer Neiman Marcus, said its decision to shut the Neiman Marcus flagship store in downtown Dallas is final. Even so, local leaders say they want to meet with company representatives after they secured the deed to a parcel of land the retailer said played a role in the closing.
The Neiman Marcus at 1618 Main St. is expected to close its doors on March 31 after doing business for more than a century. Saks Global bought Dallas-based Neiman Marcus at the end of last year in a deal with a total enterprise value of $2.7 billion, blaming the downtown store closing on a 99-year ground lease that expires this year and saying a decade of negotiations with the landlord had been unsuccessful.
The planned shutdown of the Neiman Marcus store in the central business district inspired a group of local city and business leaders to step into the real estate dispute to try to solve what they were told was the underlying issue behind the store closing. The group helped negotiate the donation of a 2,500-square-foot land lease underneath the Neiman Marcus store from a Dallas family to the city of Dallas.
But eliminating the landlord dispute doesn't appear to have changed Saks' plans to close the flagship store in downtown Dallas, a move that would push Dallas off the list of major U.S. cities that can support a downtown department store.
"Our decision to close the Neiman Marcus downtown Dallas store is final and we are moving forward as such," Saks Global officials told CoStar News in an email on Tuesday.
The group of city and business leaders, including Downtown Dallas Inc., said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon they still remain hopeful a meeting with Saks Global will take place on Wednesday in Dallas.
Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, part of the four-person consortium aimed at keeping Neiman Marcus' flagship store in downtown Dallas, said she is willing to hold the meeting in New York City if Saks is unable to attend the meeting in Dallas.
"We hope that Saks will live up to their word to come and meet with the consortium in person," Tolbert said in a statement read on her behalf during the press conference held on the sidewalk along Main Street in front of the store. "Otherwise, I am personally happy to lead a delegation to New York City for a productive meeting."
In Tuesday's statement, Saks Global said the Dallas consortium's "ongoing tactic of using the press to pressure us into changing our strategy in Dallas is highly unproductive." Saks Global has yet to confirm its attendance at Wednesday's proposed meeting, the statement said.
Still, Saks Global is "focused on Neiman Marcus’ future in Dallas," the statement said. The company is planning to invest $100 million to upgrade the Neiman Marcus store at the sprawling NorthPark enclosed mall that is nearly 7 miles north of the downtown Dallas flagship store.
"That future is at the NorthPark store, where we are planning a $100 million renovation," the statement said.
Other downtown store closings
Neiman Marcus is the last remaining department store in Dallas' central business district, part of the nation's fourth-largest metropolitan area.
In a similar situation, the looming closings of Macy's department stores in downtown San Francisco and downtown Philadelphia also left local officials expressing concern. In Philadelphia, several elected officials said the closing posed an opportunity to reframe the central business district.
The planned closing of the Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas at the end of the month is expected to affect 119 workers, according to a letter the company sent to the Texas Workforce Commission. Almost all of the job cuts will happen on March 31 of this year, except for eight workers who have jobs until March 31, 2027, according to an attachment the Texas Workforce Commission sent CoStar News on Tuesday. Those jobs include loss prevention specialists working in surveillance and security, according to the attachment.
The historic nine-story building mostly owned by the retailer includes office space on its upper floors that once served as Neiman Marcus' headquarters. The corporate office space above the store will continue to stay open at this time, according to people familiar with the situation.
That might give local corporate employees a place to work since Saks Global announced last month it was closing Neiman Marcus' headquarters on three floors at Cityplace Tower, a 43-story office building just north of downtown Dallas.
Neiman Marcus opened its headquarters at Cityplace Tower about two years ago with the help of more than $5 million in economic incentives from the city of Dallas. The more than 82,000 square feet was expected to offer up to 800 employees a flexible space to work but the office usage for Dallas-based employees averaged only 11 days per year, a Saks Global spokesperson told CoStar News in an email last month.
Saks Global is planning to consolidate Neiman Marcus' office hubs in Dallas and New York into Saks Global's offices in New York, the spokesperson said.